Why? Well, sad to admit, but it was an aesthetic choice. Back in the early 2000s ( And holy crap it really HAS been that long ) when I first came in contact with The Elder Scroll franchise, I was a long-haired blond male, with a fairly substantial beard. Playing as a Nord was the quickest and easiest way to get my likeness into the game.
Yes, in Oblivion the Daedra MAY have kicked my character's ass from the planes of Oblivion back to Cyrodiil. But at least he had my likeness on his face... ;)
That certainly wasn't the case by 2011, of course. These days I'm a balding ( but mostly shaven-headed ) male, with a ( mostly ) clean shaven chin. I'd love to say that choosing to do my first Skyrim playthrough as a
Nord was a choice based purely on a respect for Lore and the Native Race of the game itself and not, you know... Hair and Beard envy. But, yeah. It's a distinct subconscious possibility... :(
In choosing to play through the game as a Sword and Board fighter, playing as a Nord seemed a natural choice. As a race they have good solid starting stats for that style of play. For two-handed weapons also, granted, but I already have that covered. Still, the main stumbling block in my head was that I'd already DONE a playthrough as a Nord. I had him based out of Whiterun, holding the post of Harbinger of The Companions and married off to Aela the Huntress. Playing as a Nord had been fun, but wouldn't I just be retreading over old ground?
So, in starting a new Nord character I needed to build something different. Last time out I made a Heavily Armoured male Nord - a character I tried to make as much of an all-rounder as possible. I tried where
possible to remain as neutral in the Civil War as possible, until I had no choice but to pick a side, and I had him illogically join every faction he could, despite it being pretty illogical for the character.
So what would be the antithesis of that?
How about lightly armoured female Nord, taking clear and obvious sides with The Stormcloaks and only getting involved with the one logical Warrior Guild - The Companions?
At face value that may sound a little daft, but after a bit of digging online I realised that by the stats it actually made some sense. Unlike previous iterations of The Elder Scrolls, for better or worse, gender has no effect on the starting stats for a character. A female Nord is just as hardy at the start of the game as a male. They are in fact, beyond the obvious aesthetic detail, identical.
The Nord starting values for armour are also actually loaded towards Light Armour ahead of Heavy Armour. I suppose, because Nords generally tend to wear more fur and leather based armours, reinforced by metals for sturdiness. That kind of makes sense. Yes, Nords are generally spotted wearing Heavy Iron Helmets, and wielding Heavy Weapons, but frequently they're not wearing much more than furs as central armour.
So, with that in mind, I came up with the following:
Olda Wolf-Runner, Nord Warrior Maiden, to be armoured with Light Armour and armed with as heavy duty a Sword and Shield combination as I can find her.
Naturally ( Although by now I'm getting somewhat tired of playing through it... ) I had Olda side with the Stormcloaks, and follow Ralof out of Helgen.
My initial decision was to keep her in the Stormcloak garb for as long as possible. She would join up with the Stormcloaks, and probably be based out of Windhelm as well - Ulfric's seat of power.
Even though Ulfric is clearly a dick. :)
(But that's a discussion for another day...)
The thing is, and I know it's intended to be starting armour, but the Stormcloak Cuirass is actually one of the weakest armours in the game. Even after smithing improvements to it it's never going to compete with sticking your character in hide armour even. It makes sense for any Nord to have some basic smithing ability, so that's where I decided to start, once again converting Wolf and Bear skins into leather and from leather into Leather Armour. I bought some varying metal ingots off Alvor the Riverwood blacksmith and also smithed myself a Banded Iron Shield. I figure if I'm going to wear Iron armour I may as well have some Heavy Armour back up - letting both skills rise over time.
Oddly, for a weapon available in your first fight of the game, the Imperial Sword remains the best quality sword you can have for quite some time. It seemed a little incongruous for a Nord to hang onto it, but it is made of Steel, and unless an enchanted one-handed Sword turns up (Which in this playthrough it did not) it seemed daft to change it.
A lot of the basic comings and goings in Riverwood have, to be fair, been covered in my past three articles. I'll try to retread as little as possible here, for that reason. This being the most Nord playthrough I have ever attempted I was originally going to have Sven accompany Olda up to Bleak Falls Barrow. But, frankly, after last time I was still pretty hacked of with Sven, and had Olda respond to his stalker-style comments about Camilla Valerius with extreme sarcasm. Oddly, despite how well that went down with him he still gave me a 'fake letter' to deliver to Camilla, and claim it was from Faendal...
I hate Sven. I hate him so much.
But so, of course, does Faendal. So I decided to go and have Olda vent a little aggression, by bitching about Sven to him. With Faendal's opening line of 'What's that Blow Hard up to now?' I knew we were all on the same wavelength...
Hearing of Sven's dastardly (And clearly misguided plan) he seized the letter and gave me a 'fake letter' of his own to hand to Camilla. I have no idea what it actually said (I forgot to read it before handing it over) but given Camilla's response to reading it I gather Faendal's poisoned pen had her believe that Sven's future plans for her involved a life of cooking in and cleaning the hovel he currently lives in with his mother.
And as she points out, he already HAS a mother. She's a crazy lady who stands on her porch squawking all day about Dragons. And seriously, what type of self respecting Nord stil lives with his Mother...?
I DO however now know what Sven's 'fake letter' said. Faendal still had that on his person after he officially became a follower, so I cast an eye out of it.
So Sven's plan was to basically cast Faendal as MASSIVE racist? Underhand, Mr Sven! Clever. But underhand. I almost found myself gaining a bit more respect for the guy.
Almost.
But only almost.
Right! So, once again time for Bleak Falls Barrow. Some proper fighting, and getting to grips with my new chosen style. At this early stage I wanted to raise my Block level as quickly as possible. My overall target was the Power Bash perk in that skill tree, but it required Level 30. I had quite some way to go.
The basic tactic I decided to employ was raise my shield, run into battle, and let the enemy get a few hits in on my shield. I'd then butt them with my shield, staggering them briefly, before hacking away at them with my sword. This proved a pretty efficient tactic, raising my Block skill and my One-Handed at the same time. At first this proved a little tricky. I was taking a fair amount of damage even while blocking. But having Faendal as back up, raining steel arrows down o the target, ensured that I never actually fell. And sticking him in Studded Armour, and the toughest boots and gauntlets I had looted, made sure he never fell either. Even despite his fequently walking into traps like an idiot.
However, the downside of using your follower as a pack-mule became apparent in this playthrough. Of the loot you get them to carry, your follower will always equip what they consider to be the 'best'.
For 'best' read a very simple system of 'whatever has the highest weapon and armour score' rather than what would be the best weapon for this situation
I may have gone into Bleak Falls Barrow with an archer in light armour, but I came out with this patchwork pillock.
Great! I'm lucky that the ebemies later into the Crypt were always one on one fights, because Faendal certainly wasn't a fat lot of use for ranged warfare any more. But I was damned if I was going to drop any of the loot, so I had to make do...
I was eventually able to pick up a Block perk which thankfully lowered the damage I was taking while blocking, along with another from the One-Handed skill tree making me hit that little bit harder, which made Olda a fair bit hardier as we progressed further into Draugr territory. Annoyingly though, I actually only acquired Power Bash AFTER I'd killed the Boss Draugr. So I've know way of know how effectively it works in combat. It LOOKS good. A nice big sweep of the shield, will will hopefully knock an enemy or to the ground, allowing me to follow up with a sword.
But it's all theory, for now.
Oddly, given that for the most part this was a very defensive playthrough, this was quite a satisfying experience. I'm definitely interested in continuing with it. The next step will probably to replace that Iron Banded Shield with a Steel or Enchanted one, and to decide whether I head to Whiterun first or make my way up to Windhelm to join the Stormcloaks. Either way it has some scope. Far more than I thought it
would.
Next Time: Imperials. And Mages. Yes, no more Stormcloaks for a bit. Why not come back at see how that works out?
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